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Lesha Wars
The Lesha Wars are an ongoing series of low-intensity conflicts over the Lesha trade, dating back to before the Reaper War and intensifying with the fall of the Lymean Interstellar megacorporation on the garden world of Sorvatan. Largely out of the public eye of the wider galaxy due to a careful corporate propaganda machine and the planet’s luxurious nature as a resort world, Sorvatan’s Lesha Wars have defined much of the planet’s primary industry and the lifestyle of the working class. On the corporate side of the Lesha Wars, the conflict is equal parts police action on the part of security units within corporate enclaves, and counter-guerrilla operations carried out in the jungles by mercenaries hired from offworld. The cartel side of the conflict takes on equal shades of organized crime and guerrilla campaigns in contrast. The war is, at its core, an economic conflict over the corporations’ steps to lock down on Lesha smuggling rings. Lesha Smuggling Lesha smuggling is the primary criminal business on Sorvatan. With the value of Lesha as a luxury good across the Terminus Systems, and with Sorvatan being the only planet on which it can grow due to atmospheric and soil conditions being precisely right and difficult to replicate offworld, the cash crop is Sorvatan’s main export for a very good reason. Because of this, corporate shipping is given exceptional levels of special treatment when it comes to shipping Lesha as a general rule. The exact details vary from company to company, but most commonly, any merchant ships operating under a Sorvatan corporate license are not taxed in ports owned by their parent company. Independent merchant ships and free trader vessels, on the other hand, deal with exorbitant costs due to the local Lesha tariffs established by the megacorps. This policy of extreme tariffs has become the primary motivator for offworlders doing business with Sorvatan’s Leash cartels. It is commonly believed every cartel on the planet has at least one customs official on the take in any ports near their territory. The cartel simply bribes a customs official, sells harvested and packaged Lesha at a bargain price to a merchant captain, and the paperwork is tidied up with no questions asked. Corporate Lesha interests have never been able to adequately compete with the cartels in terms of price because of this practice, but many companies hold a moral high ground in that their Lesha brands are often marked with a proclamation that they do not use conscripted or slave labor in its harvesting, a fact they quietly neglect to mention results in higher costs for the consumer. Most corporate governors simply settle for removal of corrupt customs officials, investigations into cartel activity, and the elimination of individual cartel plantations as they find them while they maintain that moral high ground: An uneasy, if simple, balance between burning the whole planet in open warfare to eliminate their primary competition in the industry, and allowing the Leash cartels to secure an unacceptable dominance of the planetary economy. As such, the state of affairs surrounding the Lesha industry remains largely unchanging as new cartels crop up in the wake of destroyed Leash plantations and fill the hole left by their predecessors. Sapient and Arms Trafficking Two other smuggling issues that tie into the Leash business are sapient trafficking and the illegal arms trade. Weapons aren’t particularly well-regulated in most corporate colonies due to the necessity of ensuring that bodyguards for VIPs on vacation and corporate mercenary auxiliaries are adequately outfitted, but the problem arises when large weapon shipments are brought in through customs and end up in the hands of the local cartels. While many of these weapon shipments are brought in via legitimate channels, large portions end up dropping off the grid, being conveniently ‘stolen’, or otherwise disappearing, only to reappear in cartel hands. The sapient trafficking trade is similarly difficult to keep track of due to the inherent Leash-related corruption in most customs agencies on Sorvatan and the large number of visiting vacationers year-round. Corporate Strategy The corporations on Sorvatan resort to using only hired PMCs and freelancers who are under an NDA to conduct offensive operations in the jungles. This stems primarily from an interest in the megacorps collectively aiming to keep Sorvatan’s many problems with organized crime and cartel activity from regularly becoming galactic news. This corporate propaganda machine is kept going in an attempt at protecting Sorvatan’s profitable tourism industry and maintaining a lack of scrutiny on the Lesha trade itself. It is for this reason that any hint of the ongoing ‘Lesha Wars’ rarely ever appears in the cities or on offworld news channels. Reporters investigating the Lesha Wars are often unofficially encouraged to leave the planet, whether by bribery or intimidation. Despite the planet’s status as a warzone, very rarely are large-scale engagements committed to by any belligerents. The cartels lack the means to take on the megacorporate security forces in any kind of pitched battle and the mercenaries employed by the corporate states often have a particular standard in training or field experience that must be met before being contracted. Small unit tactics are necessary on the corporate side due to the density of the jungle terrain often restricting any kind of large-scale troop movements and the relatively small number of enemy combatants in any given engagement. As such, relatively small units of platoon size or smaller are considered viable for any larger raids into cartel-held territory. Cartel Strategy Precise tactics used by cartel forces will vary depending on the individual cartels’ level of professionalism, skill, training, past experience, and available equipment, but concealment in Sorvatan’s jungles and ambush tactics are the most common keys to a cartel victory, and once these advantages have been countered or lost, a corporate victory is almost guaranteed. Mercenaries on Sorvatan frequently become experts at countering ambushes because of the tactical necessity to respond to such maneuvers effectively. It has been noted that syndicates from offworld tend to have higher standards for their individual recruitment policies and standard-issue equipment than local cartels. Such offworld organizations have included the Clans of Anjul, several prominent PMCs such as the Red 19 and the Dread Legion, and a number of Nemean Abyss warlord factions taking a calculated risk by ranging farther afield than usual. Local cartels outnumber offworld syndicates by a significant margin and make up the vast majority of opposition PMCs might reasonably face. Media Attention A quiet investigation into Sorvatan’s state of affairs in mid-2190 by a reporter from Galaxy One News stated that corporate mercenaries have mostly maintained a 3:1 kill/death ratio against cartels in the wilderness since the end of the Reaper War despite being outnumbered and lacking an in-depth knowledge of the terrain. This is attributed to the ‘typical’ Sorvatan cartel’s low standards for recruits, and a general lack of heavy support or orbital assets among the Sorvatan crime syndicates. Overall, media attention into Sorvatan’s Lesha Wars is rare and considered unusual due to a combination of very careful corporate propaganda, reporters being persuaded to leave before they investigate too closely, and NDAs among mercenary forces being standard procedure. Despite this, media outlets have done stories on the topic in the past, including occasional interviews with cartel leaders and anonymous mercenaries. More commonly, reporters will be given interviews with key mercenary officers or Sorvatan-based executives following a major victory against the cartels that the company in question will spin as a PR move. Beyond that, media - whether on or off Sorvatan - will rarely get an opportunity to cover the war at all. Category:Conflicts